Notebooks and Notetaking

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Father’s Day (16 June) is fast approaching and I am once again struggling with an idea for a present.

This year I was thinking about Gardening Journals after seeing a pretty laid out promotional stand for gardening books in Waterstones which included the Moleskine Gardening Journal and I decided to have a look and see what other products are out there. You can always use a nice notebook with a pretty picture, but I thought a dedicated journal might give a better sense of direction.

This one is part of the Moleskine Passions Range. Personally I think anyone that buys the Passion Range needs to also have the ability to jazz it up a bit. The YouTube Marketing videos and various blog images promote an arty/doodle feel to this journal.

Both of these are long-term journals for more serious gardeners who like to reflect on their garden year on year. Learn from your mistakes and develop your garden year on year with either of these options. Also if you like a bit interesting gardening information – the Lee Valley looks like a perfect choice.

For me there is something about hanging around airports bored that makes me make impulse buys. Sometimes I think i do it because it cheers me up and I usually have some leftover foreign money.

Last year I bought my metropol Filofax among other great notebooks in an airport. This time I bought a pencil case.

Why?

Mainly because it was cute!!

But also because I thought it was a great solution for my many pens floating round my bag. It will save me digging through its multiple pockets, stop the pens staining the lining and make them easy to find. After all, it is so streamed it won’t take up any more space.

The brand of the case is called Nici and it is stocked by many different stockists but plush paws seems to have the biggest collection for UK readers.

I have the clip on ipad2 cover from apple, which doubles up as a stand and puts it on standby when you close the cover (Does it have an official name? Or just iPad cover?) It is so convenient I have never considered trying anything more personal and different – there was no need.

Until I came across these – iPad covers made out of a notebook (or hardback book):

The buzz is beginning to settle here in the UK following a successful Olympics. I had a hectic long weekend in London, but it was fantastic weather and an amazing experience. I honestly wish I had taken more photos – but there is nothing I hate more than “looking like a tourist”.

One stop on our journey was a visit to (one of the many) London 2012 stores within the Olympic park while waiting to enter the stadium. Most people bought t-shirts and bags, I headed straight to the stationery section. I was disappointed. Many spiral-bound rather cheap looking notebooks with the mascot, and no Filofaxes. (I am still hungry for a new filofax but had ruled out the Olympics version ages ago so I don’t know why I was hoping to see it.)

They only thing that caught my eye was the collectors edition of 3 notebooks (diary, notebook and scrapbook) at £30. But since my partner’s mother was insisting on buying EVERYTHING I could not justify asking for a set of notebooks, collectors edition or not. Not to mention my partner is trying to cull my collection. So I was hoping to sneak off later and have a chance to pick one up, but that never happened.

On my return home I looked up the notebooks online – Letts (I love letts) is selling them for a reduced price of £15 (and no sign of them in the 2012 online shop).

In the shop they were all wrapped up in plastic and I could not see the individual covers of the notebooks. Now that I have seen the pictures online, I am not so sure of the purchase. Yes, it would be a great keepsake and yes I love the gold silver and bronze idea for a collection of 3 notebooks, but I have never liked the 2012 logo and it is the same on each notebook. The tourist icon notebook (also available on the Letts website) is a better design.

Oh never mind… It is staying on my wish list!! After all, who could turn down a Letts Diary.

Monday morning has come round again – and as usual the weekend was crammed with errands. While my OH was battling with the bank, I took the opportunity to dabble in Oliver Bonas. For those of you who have not ventured into Oliver Bonas, they sell a mix of clothes, furniture, homeware, jewellery, gifts, books and of course the reason I go in… Notebooks.

I came across the “one good deed a day” journal. As readers are probably aware, I don’t really need another journal and I am currently continuing along quite happily with my simple diary (also available from Oliver Bonas I will add) so I did not make a purchase this time. But it is a great idea, and a pretty journal.

The journal contains 365 good deeds – you can do them in any order (and just write in the date you do them with reflections) or as I suspect would be more challenging – try to do them in order. I might be a little too naughty for such a book, but it is certainly inspiring and a great challenge for those who love daily projects.

I’d be interested to know if anyone has taken up the challenge and bought this journal?

However, there was a distinct lack of creativity, if I actually wanted ideas regarding shelving and creative storing ideas, google is my friend. Just browsing generally I have creative ideas to use when I have my own house etc. The book is a handy guide, all in one place, but some of it is just common sense.

That said the love of books comes though in this e-dominant world and it is an enjoyable read. The pictures are great, and I am sure that everyone who reads this will take something away.

This is a borrow rather than buy book. But books do make a home (yes, books shelves surround me) and I probably will keep adding to the collection so there is inspiration to be drawn.

A lot of chat lately has brought the 2012 Olympics back into focus and final preparations have begun. The tickets and accommodation has been sorted, but I am still in the process of trying to book my train tickets and deciding what else to do when I am in London.

With Olympics on the brain, I thought I’d have a look at the official Olympics 2012 offerings on the notebook front. There is quite a lot of official stationery available on sale, as well as collectible stamps and coins.